


Rewind and Fast Forward

by sansos



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, College, F/M, Friends to Lovers, High School, M/M, Med Student Reader, One Shot, Pro Volleyball Player Tsukishima Kei, Reader-Insert, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:08:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28540815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansos/pseuds/sansos
Summary: “You’re too busy dreaming about tomorrow, I’m too busy overthinking yesterday”Follows your relationship with Tsukishima from when you first meet in high school to when you graduate from university.
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei & Reader, Tsukishima Kei/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 54





	Rewind and Fast Forward

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from [@mehreya](https://mehreya.tumblr.com/): **“Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars.”**

“Your class got a new transfer student today right, Tsukki?” 

“Don’t call me Tsukki,” the blond responded immediately without missing a beat, his eyes rolling in annoyance though not without a trace of a smirk on his lips. It wasn’t that he particularly hated the nickname — no, a warm and exhilarating rush would find itself working across his vessels whenever he heard it. A learned response of sorts — one conditioned from both the sweetness of success and the sourness of defeat.

He looked back down at the redhead in front of him. No, the near-instinctive answer was merely just a manifestation of the unlikely camaraderie the two had built up over the course of the year.

“And it doesn’t really matter if there is or if there isn’t. It doesn’t concern me,” he added on nonchalantly to answer his friend’s question.

“You can’t say that,” Hinata exasperated, his hands flying to Tsukishima’s arms to shake the blocker as if doing so would help him realize the point he was trying to make. “It’s an opportunity to make a new friend!” he reasoned. “Maybe they’ll want to help us too!” 

“We already have two managers,” Tsukishima commented, peeling Hinata’s hands off of his jersey. He glanced over to the side to where you stood laughing with a group of students in his class, his lips drawn out into a thin, straight line. 

“And besides, I don’t think we’d get along that well to begin with.” 

You had just joined the class as a transfer student near the end of the school year, and while it was common and even expected for anyone in your position to have felt lost and out of place, you showed no hint of being fazed. With a bright smile etched onto your lips, you carried yourself with such enthusiasm he couldn’t help but wonder if there was truly something to be joyful about over being effectively an outsider in a foreign environment. 

There was just this sense of inexplicable optimism that you seemed to exude with your very existence. You held your head up high, looking ahead rather than down at the ground, and kept walking on forwards with your back straight and a determined smile on your face no matter the odds. The resolute look in your eyes as you walked through obstacle after obstacle on your first day with the blind belief that everything would be alright… 

_It had annoyed him to no end_. 

“You shouldn’t say that, Tsukishima,” Hinata chided, clicking his tongue as he wagged his finger in front of the blond’s face. “You never know what’ll happen.” 

You had reminded the blond of the middle blocker standing in front of him, and while he could chalk up Hinata’s energy to his unrelenting passion for volleyball, he wasn’t quite sure where to place you on the map. The sense of unbridled cheerfulness — the assured faith in the fickle thing called hope — he wasn’t sure how to approach you, and he was certain he wasn’t keen on finding out the answer anytime soon.

“You can control quite a bit of what happens,” came his answer accompanied by yet another roll of his eyes as he flicked his wrist at the redhead. “Go back to class or I won’t help you with your homework anymore.” 

“The bell hasn’t even rung yet!” Hinata complained, huffing as he turned away from the door with a pivot of his heel. “I can’t believe you’re using that as leverage here.”

“I wasn’t aware you knew how to use the word ‘leverage’ in a sentence,” Tsukishima said as he struggled to keep a straight face on, innerly reeling from amusement at the look that Hinata had shot him in response to his jab. “And I’ve got a test later on in the afternoon that I’d like to study for,” Tsukishima nonchalantly shrugged, raising up his hand to brush his teammate away. “And unlike you, some of us actually like passing exams.”

“We’ve already established that you’re smarter than me, quit rubbing it in,” came the boy’s annoyed retort as he shoved his hands deep into his pant pockets and started walking ahead. He took five steps forward before he turned back around with a wide beam on his face.

“Catch you at practice later, Tsukishima!”

Tsukishima watched as the shorter middle blocker ran back towards the front of the hallway to return to his own classroom, expelling a breath as soon as Hinata disappeared from sight, and then turned back around, sliding the classroom door shut behind him. He walked back over to his desk by the window, pulling out the chair with a gentleness in his movements as to not elicit the screeching sound of metal scraping across the floorboards, and sank down into his seat with his headphones over his head and his music player in his hands. 

_Later, huh?_

His gaze shifted from the chalkboard up front over to his side, looking out the large glass windows separating him from the forest of hills and valleys beyond the school grounds. With the sun’s blinding rays just barely making past the trees growing by the school building, what was allowed to pass through were the gentle streams of light that bathed Tsukishima and the rest of the classroom in a warm, mellow glow. 

It happened too quickly, he thought; the way that the sun and the moon exchanged places each time the star rose from the East and made its way across to set in the West. There was no time to stop, no time to wait for those who’d like to take the extra time to collect themselves before moving forwards. 

His hand curled up into a tight fist as he clenched down on his jaw to dispel the souring numbness that seemed to creep up his spine. 

The sun would never mind those who couldn’t keep up; it stood to spear through all and charge on forwards — unrestrained and never pausing to look back. Tsukishima turned over briefly to catch a glimpse of you, watching from where he sat as you made your way from person to person to introduce yourself to the class. 

For someone like you and Hinata, a setback didn’t even serve as a temporary blockade in the path to your realized greatness. It was nothing more than an insignificant speck of dust — not even worthy of a fraction of your time. It was people like you who shined bright like the sun, and it was people like you who were destined for more. For someone like him, who relied on the light radiated by the sun to move forward… 

Tsukishima looked down at his music player, having noticed that the song he had been listening to had ended, and clicked on the rewind button. 

_People like him and people like you lived in two separate worlds_. And even if he _had_ wanted to get to know you, for what reason would you want to talk to him? He knew — he knew just how chained his mind was to the past; how could he expect you to stay at a standstill for the likes of him? 

“Hi, I’m (l/n) (f/n).” 

Tsukishima diverted his view from the mountains outside the window to look over at you, noting the wide beam plastered across your face and the single hand reached out in an offer for a handshake. He hit the pause button in the center of the device, and slipped his headphones off his head. His forehead creased into a frown, and he reached a hand out to reciprocate your handshake, not bothering to get up from his chair. 

_How troublesome._

“Tsukishima Kei,” he answered, his poker face set in stone to hide the surprise that had arisen from within. 

He watched as you slid into the seat in front of his, your arms resting on top of the back of the chair as you waited for the blond to continue speaking. Tsukishima simply raised an eyebrow and stared back impassively, letting the uncomfortable silence settling between the two of you persist as he stayed quiet. 

The two of you lived in two separate worlds; your views contrasted one another while your beliefs clashed in every way imaginable. You were what he presumed to be an optimist — the type to always focus on the silver lining, to believe in the miracles that the future would bring — while he classified himself as a realist, though he wouldn’t mind being labeled as a pessimist either.

He had to get along with Hinata for the sake of the team — he was the sun while he was the moon, the two pillars of the court rotating between the exuberance of the day and the stillness of the night. It was easy enough with his upperclassmen reining him in, but you? You were just another student in his class — he didn’t need to get along with you, and he certainly did not need to become friends with you. 

It was better to just leave it as two strangers.

“You listen to a lot of music?” you asked with a shy smile after having plucked up the courage to break the wall of silence. Your finger pointed at the music player resting just off the edge of his desk compartment. 

His eyes followed down to where your finger was gesturing to, finding himself caught off guard by how you had noticed the device. Tsukishima nodded slowly, bringing the music player out and turning it around to show you the screen.

“You don’t want to skip forward and listen to some other songs?” 

“I like being able to listen to it on repeat. It’s nice, being able to focus on the details that you would miss otherwise.” It wasn’t a lie, though it wasn’t the full truth either. If you were to move on, then the memories of the past would start to fade little by little until you could no longer even recall a single detail anymore. He had particularly enjoyed the song, and he wasn’t quite ready to part with it just yet.

A silence settled in-between the two of you once more following his answer, and unlike the descriptions in the novels he’s had to read for Japanese Literature, it was neither magical nor romantic — it was awkward, uncomfortable, and unsettling. His eyes trailed up to look at you, wondering if the same thought had crossed through your mind as well. 

Your lips opened up by a fraction of an inch, and for a second, Tsukishima braced himself for another awkward conversation starter. His shoulders relaxed and slouched back inwards when you sealed them back up again, opting instead to flash him a tight-lipped smile instead as your fingers fiddled with one another underneath his desk. 

A minute soon passed, followed quickly by another. Three minutes in and you got up, the same self-conscious smile from before still stretched onto your lips for display as you turned around and pushed back the chair you had sat on. You dipped your head down ever so slightly as a quiet whisper of a goodbye escaped your lips, and he slipped his headphones back on, staring in silence as he watched you skip off to the next classmate, your hand reaching out in the same way you had reached out to him just moments before. 

His finger pressed down on the play button to resume the song he had been listening to before you had interrupted him, the familiar notes of the piano flooding his mind once again. Through the blaring music he could make out the loud sounds of laughter emanating from where you now stood, surrounded by a group of students who must have been amused by something you had said under some false promise of a potential friendship. 

That was it, wasn’t it? What separated him from the rest of the class as well as from you. You didn’t get hung up by the taste of failures from the past, choosing to get back up to keep moving forward each time it tried to strike you down. 

No, he would never get along with you even if he tried. The two of you lived in two separate worlds and belonged in two separate dimensions. It wouldn’t make sense to come together to try and form a friendship or whatever. No, he was sure that if you did, there would certainly be a day where you would come to regret it. 

He looked back out the window, finally expelling the breath he had unknowingly clung onto. With his gaze fixed onto the branches of the tree just outside his window, his thumb searched for the reverse button on his music player, its surface a little smoother than all the others from its constant usage, and pressed down once, only letting go when he felt the small vibration of the _click_ of the button and heard the opening notes of the song play again. 

_It’d be best if the two of you never interacted again_ , he thought. 

* * *

As fate would have it, you were placed in the same class yet again the following year, your seats not far enough for him to completely block out your existence, though not close enough for you to have been able to cast any magical spells of a temporary superficial friendship onto him either. It was an uncomfortable limbo between the two extremes, not unlike the very relationship the two of you shared. You represented the future and all of its glory while he was merely the past and all the unwanted memories. There was no reason for the two to mix, and yet they could never seem to diverge far enough for his liking. 

Time and time again you would try to strike up a conversation with him in-between the breaks between classes. He’d keep his responses curt; short and to-the-point, as if to convey the idea that he would rather be anywhere but there. Perhaps it was rude, but it was for the best; the two of you had no business becoming friends with one another, after all. Yet you came back each and every time with the same cheery demeanor to ask him about both everything and nothing, your conversation topics ranging from the weather to the selection of breads sold at the cafeteria downstairs. 

And as much as he tried to dislike you — to try to see you with eyes filled with contempt — he couldn’t. It was akin to a moth to a flame: he knew from experience that this would simply spell destruction in the long run, but there was just this intrinsic captivating allure in you that he couldn’t seem to dispel no matter how hard he tried. 

You were a good student — one of the top in the grade, even. And while you weren’t immune to the occasional slip-up, you never let it stop you; no, he’s seen the way a bad test mark lit up a flame in the depths of your eyes, and he’s caught you on many occasions after school burying your head in the books to review what you didn’t understand to claim back your perfect score in the next successive test. It was that inextinguishable flame that seemed to burn so bright within you that he just couldn’t seem to ignore. 

He had taken an unintended glance at your career planning survey one day, noticing the neat and tidy handwriting in which the word “doctor” was carefully written. A sense of shyness and timidness translated into the lightness of the writing, though the decisive strokes suggested that your mind had long been made. He had thought it suited you: your easygoing and friendly nature, your politeness and your empathy — though most importantly, it was your firm mind set in the future, never stopping to despair over the failures of yesterday, instead always choosing to blaze on ahead at full speed to clear hurdle after hurdle in your way. 

If anyone could do it, it’d be you, he thought. You’d be a good candidate, and if you managed to make it so far, you’d surely excel in your role for the qualities that made you so uniquely you. 

So uniquely you and so distinctly _not_ him. No, people like him were never destined for such roles in society. A steady nine to five job as a salaryman was more suitable for him. It was realistic and achievable; anything else would have been simply setting himself up for failure for he understood full well the limitations to his own abilities. 

Tsukishima slipped his shoes off, his hands holding onto the ledge of the tall shoe racks in front of him for balance as he exchanged his indoor slippers for the leather shoes he had come to school in this morning. He frowned, staring out through the glass doors of the school building to the hammering of the heavy rain down onto the school grounds from high up above. 

The sun had been up, with not a single trace of a cloud in sight when he left the house. He unzipped and re-zipped his bag, scowling at the visual confirmation that he had indeed neglected to pack an umbrella in his bag because of his mistaken presumption.

Perhaps this could serve as a penance of sorts, he thought. A punishment for his inadequacy in maintaining the self-defined distance that should have existed between you and him — a penalty for having been unable to maintain the delicate balance of time. 

“Tsukishima,” you called out, running over to him with one hand clutching onto the strap of your school bag to keep it up against your shoulder as the other held onto a black cylindrical object. 

“(l/n)?” He turned around, watching as a blur whipped past the end of the hallway to where he stood by the shoe racks next to the entrance. His thumb searched for the pause button on his music player inside of his coat, and his other hand reached up to brush his headphones down to his neck. 

You stopped in front of him, your chest heaving up and down as you tried to catch your breath, and lifted your head up with your mouth contorted into a bright beam, the corners of your eyes crinkling up as the smile took hold of your features.

“I thought you’d need this!” you happily exclaimed, shoving the black object into his hands. “You always come to school earlier on Tuesdays to unlock the gymnasium for morning practice, don’t you?”

Tsukishima nodded, his expression a picture of confusion as he struggled to comprehend how _this_ was in any way relevant to you standing in front of him and offering him your umbrella.

“The weather report changed to forecast rain in the afternoon today when I left the house, and I figured that you must not have brought an umbrella with you if you left home so early. So I figured I’d bring an extra today for you.” 

This wasn’t supposed to happen; the future and the past were not meant to entwine together — it defied all elements of the spacetime continuum. And yet, here you were, standing before him with your smile so bright and so full of hope in spite of the relationship that he had labored over to define over the course of the year. You were supposed to be at odds with him, not pay attention to the weather and keep his schedule in mind. 

“Thank you,” he finally managed after an extended pause. He looked down, his thumb brushing over the clasp that bound the folded fabric against the pole. 

“Well, then I’ll see you tomorrow?” you asked, walking ahead through the doors, stretching open your umbrella and then tucking it in the crook of your neck. You turned around and smiled at the blond through the glass as you waited for his reply.

The boy stayed still, his legs rooted firmly into the wooden planks of the floorboards he stood on by the shoe racks, his hand still clutching tightly onto the folded umbrella in his hands. You, whose smile seemed so unattainable — so vibrant and so full of hungry anticipation of the future and beyond… 

Who was he to try and catch a glimpse into your world? 

He was just a high schooler who enjoyed volleyball and got decently good grades. Someone like him would never match well next to you; there was no point to even bother to try.

His eyes trailed down to the bronze clasp holding the umbrella together, and he reached up his other hand to undo it, allowing the fabric to fall between the gaps of his fingers. 

“See you tomorrow,” he mumbled quietly under his breath, his eyes still trained down to stare at the object in his hands. It was odd; every fiber of his being warned him of the divergence in his path and from his original mission. Every bell — every siren — was going off, the warning lights flashing in his mind as he watched the edges of your lips pick up into a wide smile, his ears hearing the melodious “goodbye” you had loudly exclaimed as you excitedly waved and ran off in the direction of the bus stop to catch the bus before it left. 

The blond let out a sigh and walked on forward, his fingers meeting the metal frames of his glasses as he pushed them back up his nose. His head turned near-reflexively towards his right, exhaling out a sigh of relief as he watched you dash onto the bus. As the vehicle departed from the station, his eyes trailed up skywards to the clouds situated above. 

A picture of greys and whites with the colors bleeding into each other stretched out across the sky — no end nor beginning discernible by the human eye alone. The rainclouds propagating above brought along with it the incessant downpour of the freezing rain, washing away every last speck of dirt, of sin — of regret — with each repeated pitter patter of the army of raindrops striking at the surface of reality. He squinted, his hand raising up to his forehead to block the stray rays of light that dared to escape the fortress created by the clouds. 

It had been sunny just before lunch, with the school bell signaling the onset of the rain that persisted into the present. Did the sun dare shine through and wrestle back control of the sky’s domain to return the sunshine later on? He wasn’t sure, though it wasn’t really for him to have any say in the matter, now was it? 

Everything he did would remain insignificant in the grander scheme of things. He wasn’t one to sway the order of power, and he definitely wasn’t one to bring about any groundbreaking change in the world. He was but a high school student, and he knew from personal experience just how limited his options were in his position. People who could do more — who _dared_ to believe they could one day accomplish more… 

The blond reached into his pockets, bringing out the silver device connected to the white headphones he wore around his neck. With a practiced hand, he brushed the band up to the center of his head, and he quickly pressed on the play button, picking up from where he had previously left off. 

After a mere four bars accompanied by two steps taken forward, the song concluded and the silence of the delay accompanying the jump to the next track settled in. 

There really wasn’t any reason why he should be pursuing something that would be doomed to fail. 

Tsukishima looked back down at his music player, hitting the rewind button again before shoving the device back into his coat pocket. 

_It didn’t really matter what he wanted or not; he could do nothing to change what would eventually happen regardless._

* * *

As if like clockwork, mid-spring soon came around and he once again found himself assigned to the same class as you, this time sitting directly behind you by some odd stroke of luck. It had made no sense to him; if the two of you were meant to remain as two points on a pair of parallel lines that were never meant to intersect no matter the distance, why did fate keep placing the two of you in the way of each other at every intersection — every chance of separation — that came up? 

He had found himself staring at you since that one rainy day by the school entrance, choosing to watch the way your eyes gazed out the windows and up into the clouds rather than the lesson on the board. Part of him had secretly hoped that one day you’d catch him in the act, turning your head over with your eyes meeting his own, though he knew that it would only end up causing more trouble than good if it were to actually happen.

You were the future and beyond; you were unlimited potential and the infinite unknown. He was content enough just watching you — stealing the stray rays of light that passed through without your notice. The two of you lived in separate worlds — it wouldn’t make sense for them to come together. 

You were meant to lead the way, to serve as the North Star in the darkest of nights, guiding lost travelers back to the place that mattered the most. In comparison, he was just some high school kid who was decently good at blocking and got decently passable grades.

Though when Karasuno lost in the final set of the semi-final match at center stage in the Spring Tournament because of a ball that _he_ failed to block, he couldn’t help but find himself wondering if he even deserved to say that anymore. Did he even deserve to be where he was, basking in the light you had radiated? The moon itself was only made visible because of the light reflected off of the sun, but what was there to reflect off of if all that ever existed was just a crumbled pile of what once was? 

“Tsukki.” 

He looked up from the cocoon he had constructed for himself with his limbs, his forearms folded and resting against his knees, his head having been cradled safely in the cage — hidden away from sight and tucked away from the perceiving eyes of onlookers. 

Tsukishima stretched out his limbs from where he sat on the concrete steps leading up to the gymnasium, pulling out his phone to glance at the time. The sun had since set, with the veil of black having been pulled across the atmosphere of the sky. While the moon had stepped in as a substitute until dawn came around, the artificial lighting from the lights mounted outside of the gym and in the lamp posts nearby had overpowered the soft glow of the moon, casting the moonlight itself into the shadows as well. 

“(l/n),” he greeted, slipping his headphones off his head as he tapped on his phone screen to pause the song he had been listening to. 

“I thought you’d be more happy with that offer from the Sendai Frogs,” you said, walking over to stand in front of him, your feet shoulder-width apart and your hands buried in your pockets. “They even offered to help you cover your university tuition.”

He wasn’t destined for anything _other_ than what he was capable of, and what happened at Nationals was merely a simple reminder of the fact. He had no business trying to pry open the doors to try to step foot into where you and the rest of the monsters he so envied stood. A full-ride scholarship to his first choice university offered by a professional volleyball team? 

He had _no right_. None of it. 

The blond’s eyes trailed to stare off into yours, not bothering to care what may have crossed your mind in the moment. He had wanted to ask you for the answers to the questions he failed to formulate into cohesive thoughts, but with your eyes seemingly sparkling amongst the background of the stars in the night sky, the color of your irises seemingly glowing under the mixture of the moonlight and the lighting of the gymnasium, he found that his words had been caught in his throat. 

What was he doing, trying so desperately to snatch a piece of what wasn’t his to possess? 

“There’s really nothing to be happy about,” he mumbled with a sigh as his eyes diverted back down to the ground, shifting over to the side to make room for you next to him. You turned your head over to stare at him, your eyebrow raised and your expression a paradoxical mixture of both confusion and slyness. 

“Why, you wanted Kageyama’s offer from the Adlers too?” you laughed, your elbow digging in softly at his side as you sat down beside him. “You really love the guy, don’t you?” 

“I really don’t,” he found himself chuckling, a small trace of a smile on his lips. You had never failed to poke fun at the peculiar relationship that existed between the mid-blocker and the setter of the boys’ volleyball team, having brought it up like an ace tucked under your sleeves every chance you got. “I wouldn’t be able to balance school if I was in a division 1 team, now would I?” 

Another laugh chimed out from you, and he closed his eyes, savoring your presence by his side, his mind wondering if he could press pause in this very moment, just like how he had paused the song he had been listening to before. Unlike in the past, he had begun to appreciate the silence that settled between the two of you whenever you spoke, and as much as he wanted to widen the gap between the two of you to prevent his own hopes from disintegrating when the inevitable were to occur, he couldn’t deny the fact he had cherished and even treasured the moments you had chosen to spend with him. 

A rustle from the material of the jacket you had on caught his notice, and his eyelids fluttered back open, catching you staring at him with a worried smile on your face. 

“So what’s thrown you in such a loop?” 

Tsukishima took a deep breath, tossing his head back to let his bangs hang upside down as he stared past the blinding lights of the fixtures underneath the railing and straight at the pale moon sitting awkwardly alone in a sea full of stars. 

“What if…” he began, his voice a hoarse whisper, “What if I take this offer and it ends up going all wrong? What if I let down my team again because I couldn’t do my job properly as a blocker? It won’t be just a high school club anymore — it’d be the V-League. I might not be at the same level as the King, but there’s still so much riding on my back. I’m not like Hinata or Kageyama… Or any of the rest for the matter. I’m just normal. I’m just tall. I just can see things a little clearer because I use my mind a little.” 

“So what you’re saying is?” 

“I don’t want to have to accept this offer and then come to realize that I don’t belong. That this position could have been filled by someone more suitable and that I’m just in the way. I’m not talented, I never was.”

He could feel the sting of the onset of tears at the base of his nose, and he clenched down tighter on his jaw, his fists tight by his side. 

“And you're basing this off of what happened at Nationals?” He glanced down, his eyes staring at the hand you had rested on his thigh; your touch warm and comforting — as if reassuring him that everything would work out in the end. 

“I should have just trusted my gut…” he continued, “I just… don’t know if it were to happen again, whether or not I’d be able to go against what my eyes are reading. Failure will happen again, and I don’t know if I can live with the burden of knowing I could have saved the winning point.” 

You leaned over closer to him, your face mere inches away from his. “You can’t say that until you’ve tried.”

He unfurled a fist, stretching out his fingers and resting his hand on top of the one you had rested onto his leg, and then turned over and looked down into your eyes, his own filled with forlorn desperation, as if pleading for you to guide him towards an answer — any answer. 

“That’s easy for you to say. You’re someone who’s always been able to see farther.” His response came out as a broken, cracked whisper, so filled with the vulnerability he never once dared to show anyone. It was almost poetic, really, for the defender of the team — the metaphorical wall — to have always been so guarded and so fearful of failure that he hid behind the very fortress he constructed himself.

A wistful smile broke out across your lips, and you raised both hands up to his face, the fire burning from deep within you staring straight into him as you looked him in the eyes. 

“I just think about how **whatever causes night in our souls will leave behind stars**. You know, how every hardship serves to only make us stronger in the future?” You released him from your grip and raised a hand up and above your head, your fingers extended as if intending to close the distance between your place on Earth with the galaxies above.

Tsukishima silently watched as you closed your hand into an empty fist, your eyes closed with a serene expression on your face. 

_The future…?_

“That’s just a bunch of glorified bullshit for people to say to make themselves feel better,” he muttered after a pause, diverting his eyes back down to his hands sitting in his lap. His hands clenched up, the skin on the back of his palm taut against each bone and each tendon. His nails dug deep into his palms as his grip tightened, his teeth biting into his bottom lip to keep his mind off the well of tears threatening to spill out. 

“You think so too?” 

His hand stopped shaking, unclenching back into rest as he looked over in your direction, his lips tight against each other.

“Is it wrong to feel pain? To feel defeated? Like a failure? No matter what flowery words someone tells me, it will never change the way I think. I will continue with this skewed feeling of regret of having known I could do more. So yes, that’s what I think.” 

You raised your hand up to his eyes, your sleeves pulled over your fingers, and wicked away the stray tear that had escaped past the barricades to roll down his cheek. 

“But you’ll never know until you try. And if it happens, then it happens. Failure will happen again. It’ll happen over and over again, but it doesn’t mean that it’s the end of anything for you.” You looked over at him, your eyes shining even in the darkness of the night with his own face reflecting off its surface. “It’s only just begun for you, Tsukki,” you smiled, grabbing onto his hand and interlocking your fingers together in a tight clasp. 

“So just go with your gut and grab hold of my hand, and let’s run towards the future together, alright?”

Olive eyes glanced down to stare at the sight of your entwined hands, and a thin smile stretched out across his lips.

“(l/n),” he began, your name rolling effortlessly off his tongue, the warmth in his tone a stark contrast to the indifference he had referred to you with when you had first met.

“Tsukki,” you responded back, your eyes closed in a serene smile as you leaned your head to rest on his shoulders. 

“Thank you.”

* * *

With the words you had said that evening in front of the gymnasium, he had gone and accepted the offer the next day, signing on as a middle blocker with the Sendai Frogs while simultaneously enrolling into his chosen university. It was far outside of his comfort zone, and if either part of the plan failed, no contingency existed to rescue him. But it was a step forward nonetheless, and a step forward was what he had promised to take.

_You’ll never know until you try_. He had clung onto the sentence that had left your lips that day like a mantra, repeating it in his mind over and over again to assuage the unsettling uneasiness in the back of his mind as he took each step. Slowly but surely, he moved forwards, slowly wading his way further and further away from shore to explore the uncharted waters, tackling each obstacle that came his way as they came about.

His worst fears had come true — multiple times, in fact. He had since lost count of the times the losing point was his fault — a stray ball that he could’ve blocked if he had been just a little better. Yet he continued, picking himself up after each fall to get back up and keep walking forwards because you had been right all along: this wasn’t the end of anything for him just yet.

Tsukishima zipped up his green and white-patterned jersey, his hands snuggly hidden in the coat pockets with his right hand encircled around his phone. The final notes of the song he had been listening to rang through his ears, and he continued on walking towards the main entrance of the medical school’s building as the opening melody of the next song on his playlist began. 

He wasn’t one to believe in soulmates — no, that was just some make-believe concept that romantics chose to believe in, after all. Though he couldn’t help but agree that fate had a peculiar way of interfering with the way that things were _supposed_ to be; as if it couldn’t help but wave a hand over the fickleness of life and alter the course of natural progression. He had spent all of high school trying to distance himself away from you — trying to maintain the order of what _should_ have been — and yet you refused to stay idle and obey the laws of nature, going against all odds to reach out to him time and time again until he had no other choice but to reciprocate — until he had no other choice but to open up his heart to let you in. 

You, who ran farther and farther ahead, each step wider than the last, had enrolled in the medical school attached to his university, somehow remaining by his side and refusing to leave even after high school flew past. And perhaps it was that fateful day weeks before graduation and weeks after Nationals that spurred in him the desire to catch up, awakening the locked away greed that lay dormant in the back of his mind for years before. Watching you from where he stood behind — he _wanted_ to catch up to you. He wanted to be able to step on equal ground as you one day, looking you in the face just like how the sun and the moon eclipsed every so often.

Was this what love was? He wasn’t sure, but he knew you were someone he never wanted to let go of. He’d been asked on multiple occasions if the relationship between the two of you extended beyond that of a close friendship, and while he knew the answer was a definitive “yes”, he struggled to find the right label that would do the bond shared enough justice. You were his inspiration — the person he strived to become. You were his partner in crime, his chosen study buddy, his confidant, even his emergency contact with the Sendai Frogs. You were the person who’s been with him through both thick and thin; he wasn’t sure if “love” in itself was enough to even _begin_ to describe the overwhelming feeling of hope you seemed to offer him with your very presence alone. 

A small part of him wondered how your relationship would change come spring when he graduated. He’d still be in the area, having been hired by the city’s museum alongside having his contract with the team extended, but he’d no longer catch glimpses of you on campus, and gone would be the days the two of you would spend in the library cramming textbooks of information into your memory right before your exams, trading off on coffee runs either every two hours or when one of your cups hit bottom — whatever was first to come. Four years had seemed like an eternity back when he was in high school, but it was only when he was approaching the end of his final year in college that he understood just how fleeting this time truly was. 

He looked up from the long, winding path he had trekked up, spotting you standing outside the entrance of the building. You had been leaning against the metal handrail of the steps leading up from the road to the front door, your eyes trained to the phone in your hands as you impatiently tapped at the screen with your eyes narrowed and brows furrowed.

“If you keep skipping through the songs on your playlist, you’re not going to have anything to listen to,” he said as he walked up to you, reaching up to the wireless headphones hooked over his ears to press on the small button in the center before slipping them off. “Let that fast forward button rest a little.”

You looked up from your phone, your fingers quickly tapping against the glass screen of your smartphone as your other hand pulled at the strings of your earphones. You offered him a small smile as you wrapped the cord around your device and shoved it into the bag resting by your feet. 

“Did Shirabu send you to check up on me?” 

“No, I just figured that you’d need someone right now,” Tsukishima replied, leaning against the metal railing next to you, standing side-by-side with his arms against yours. You had called him after your exam had ended that day, and while short phone calls were not a rare occurrence for the two of you, he had sensed from the subtle crack in your voice as you told him you were going to skip out on dinner and head straight home that something had happened. 

You looked up at him, and then returned your gaze down to the spot on the concrete floor in-between your feet. He heard you take a deep breath in, holding it in for a total of five seconds before you exhaled in an uneven, shaky breath. 

Tsukishima’s own lungs expelled a continuous stream of air as he sighed, and he closed his eyes. He’d wait for you to tell him yourself what had been bothering you. He had a decent guess as to what had happened, but it wasn’t his place to ask. 

And besides, the silences that fell between the two of you were something that he had grown to enjoy over time. 

“I…” you began, “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I always had this plan all laid out. Every detail calculated up to the very second. I went through all of school checking things off the list, but now…” You lifted your head up, staring out into the night sky to where the sun had been just hours earlier. “I don’t know what to do. I never planned for any of this. I didn’t plan to catch a fever, and I certainly didn’t plan to fail. I should’ve been able to pass the knowledge exam… I…” you faltered, your voice wavering in fear and trepidation as you turned over to look him in the eye, “This is just a sign, isn’t it? That I’m not cut out for this.”

For the near seven years he had known you for, this was the first sight of vulnerability — the sole moment of weakness — you had shown him. It was foreign and unfamiliar, and while he could feel the tugging of his heartstrings pulled taut against his ribcage, there was part of him that found itself overcome by a sense of reassuring relief and comfort. You had always been an infallible entity that he raced to try and catch up to, offering him a hand whenever he needed it, sharing the speed that you proudly embraced as you blazed on forwards. For him to finally meet the side of you that you had always kept tucked away to where the sunlight could never reach… 

It felt as if he had finally managed to step onto equal ground as you — as if the two of you had truly become two sides of the same coin. For you as the sun and as the future to counterbalance the moon and the past; to have to work together to exist in the twilight and in the present… 

He breathed in another breath, his chest slowly expanding to fit the volume of air that he just inhaled before releasing it all back out soon afterwards. 

“Someone once told me that **whatever causes night in our souls will leave behind stars** ,” he murmured, his fingers walking along the metal surface to find its home in yours. You looked up at him, the fire that once burned so brightly in the back of your eyes extinguished and void of the light that he had unknowingly fallen in love with since the very day he first met you. 

“And what do you think of that quote?” 

“That it’s full of shit,” he laughed, the memory from his senior year that the two of you shared resurfacing in his mind. It was comforting to learn that even after so long and so much change that there were still some things that remained the same. 

“Shit, huh? Sounds about right.” You let out a remorseful chuckle. “I don’t even know why I bother anymore,” you continued, the words slipping out of your lips in a wobble, enveloped in uncertainty and doubt. 

“But there’s still some truth in it too,” he added on, his eyes softening at the expression on your face. It had wrenched his heart to see you, who he had always known to be the very epitome of courage and optimism, to have fallen off the metaphorical ledge and to have plummeted down into the abyss of self-doubt that you yourself had saved _him_ from just years before. 

You raised an eyebrow at the man, your arms folded in front of your chest. 

“Is catching the flu right before the computer-based knowledge exam and not being able to think straight leading to me failing the exam and having to repeat the year supposed to leave stars? If anything, it’s a scar, wouldn’t you say?” 

“You scored the highest on the practical component of the exam,” he reminded you, his voice orotund and unwavering. “Isn’t that proof enough of your skill and your potential?” 

“It doesn’t matter,” you whispered, your eyes trained to the ground as your fists curled around the metal bar you were leaning against. “This is going to get recorded onto my ledger forever. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what my ranking was if I have to repeat the year and graduate a year late.” You paused, your hands letting go of the railing, the pressure that had built up in your fingers easing up as the blood rushed back in. Tsukishima quietly watched as you tossed your head back, your gaze trained at the moon sitting in the sky — illuminating the world down below in its gentle glow. 

“When I apply for residency, when I apply for specialties… This will come back to haunt me,” you croaked out, your voice strained as you tried to hold back the tears in your eyes.“I don’t know, I feel like… I’m just not cut out for this. Any accomplishment I’ve had in the past… it’ll just all be forgotten in the dark going forward.”

His eyes followed your line of sight to rest onto the moon as well, noting how unlike that day in front of the gymnasium when your roles had been switched, the moon tonight had outshone all the artificial fixtures in the area.

“Moonlight.” The world had unconsciously slipped out of his mouth. He turned to look over at you and gave your hand a gentle squeeze. “Moonlight will illuminate it. Even when the sun goes down, even in the places where the sun doesn’t reach. The moon will be there.”

He had always wondered what the purpose of moonlight truly was. After all, it wasn’t as if the moon itself was able to produce or radiate any light itself. It was no star; it merely existed in a planet’s orbit, circling around the center of the solar system just like every other object caught in its orbit. 

And yet when the sun was blocked from view — when it was forced down to rest in the still of the night — it was up to the moon and the moon alone to reflect off the stray rays of sunlight it still continued to radiate. He would never be anyone as brilliant as you, his own flame incomparable to your incandescence, but he would be there to light the way when you were unable to. 

“This isn’t the end of anything for you,” he promised, repeating the same words you had told him before as he raised your hands up to his lips to leave a quick kiss on the back of your palms just below your knuckles. “They will see you for what you have to offer when the time comes, so why spend time dwelling in worries for the future?” 

“It’s not my choice to,” you objected. Your jaw tightened as a stray tear ran down on your cheek. You looked up at him, your eyes now the ones that were pleading for an answer from him. “My thoughts pull me across faster than I can keep up. I… I don’t know what to do. I—”

“Then I’ll just have to hold onto your hand and pull you back.” 

You stared back at him, dumbfounded with your pupils blown out until it nearly eclipsed your irises. You shook your head; once, twice, then followed quickly by a downpour of your tears as you gave in and crumbled into his chest, your sobs vibrating against the jersey he had on. 

His hand travelled up your arm, stopping at your shoulder to deliver a quick pat before dropping back down to the small of your back, pushing ever so slightly to pull you in closer to him. 

“Kei,” you began in a breathy whisper, your hand reaching up to bury itself in his blond hair as you looked up into his eyes, your cheeks tearstained and your expression a blur of melancholic happiness.

“(f/n),” he said, his hand tucked underneath your ear, his caress gentle and warm and his arm wrapped around your waist to pull you in closer. 

“Thank you,” you smiled as you leaned your forehead against his.

* * *

“Hey, doc.”

He watched as you turned around, your tassel whipping around its arc of motion. Your eyes met his, and while shock had first grabbed ahold of your features within the first few seconds, your frown soon melted quickly into a smile. With your eyes threatening to spill out the tears welling behind at any second, you bit down on your lips and made your way over, your nails digging into the folder that housed the diploma you had just received. 

“Division 1 V-League athlete Tsukishima Kei of the Sendai Frogs,” you choked out behind a silent sob, your smile stretched so wide it spanned from ear to ear, “I thought you have a game tomorrow in Tokyo. May I so humbly ask what brings you here today?” 

Tsukishima shrugged, a playful grin on his face as he wrapped his free arm around you, careful not to squish the pastel pink bouquet he held in his other. 

“I was in the area,” he explained nonchalantly. “Thought I’d stop by.”

You offered him a questioning glance, your eyes revealing that you didn’t believe his excuse for even a second. He reached over for your diploma, exchanging it for the bouquet of soft pink roses in his hands. 

“You’d stop by to my convocation ceremony with a bouquet of flowers in your hands?” 

He nodded, tucking your diploma underneath his free arm as he brought you in closer to him, his nose picking up the soft vanilla notes of your shared shampoo. 

“They’re for the museum, actually. I thought I’d liven the place up a little, you know?” 

You shook your head with a light chuckle before stepping out of his hold to stand in front of him, leaning up to press your lips against his with the bouquet sandwiched between your bodies. 

“Thank you,” you whispered, looking up into his green eyes, your own glistening under the sun. He simply smiled as he pulled you back into his hold, both arms wrapped around you with the diploma now pressing against your back. 

“You caught me,” he mumbled quietly into your ear, his shoulders slouched as his head rested on your shoulder with his ear pressed against the polyester material of your gown. “They’re for you. How does it feel to officially be a doctor now?” 

You hummed happily, your hands pushing lightly against his chest to lose yourself in his eyes once again with a warm grin on your face. 

“It’s been pretty good for the past ten minutes I’d say. Though I’m just enjoying it for all it has to offer so far.” 

His eyes softened at the sight before him; the smile you wore on your face was different from the one you had first introduced yourself to him with, different from the one that would appear when you got a good score on your exams, a far cry from the one that manifested when you received your acceptance letter — different even from the one you wore when he had finally worked up the nerve to ask you out after seven long years on the day of his own convocation.

He reached his hands out to catch yours in his hold, bridging the gap that existed between the two of you, and pulled ever so slightly to bring you in closer

No, while this smile also emanated the same reassuring warmth as before, it lacked the same scorching intensity of your ambition and it was void of the determined confidence you carried yourself with. There was a sense of vulnerability — it carried along with it the weight of the scars that had been left behind from the hurdles you had overcome to stand at the place you stood today. 

He liked this look on you, he thought, and he wondered if fate would allow him to continue protecting this for as long as he lived.

“Your signature headphones are missing,” you commented. “You’re not going to try and act all cool with your headphones on?” Your hand reached up to his neck, cold fingers ghosting over his skin. 

“Nah, I kind of wanted to enjoy this moment for what it is by itself,” he responded, a smile mirroring that of yours spreading across his own lips. 

“Enjoying the present?” 

He looked down at you, his grip on your hands tightening ever so slightly, and smiled. You were the future and beyond, holding onto both the hope and the uncertainty it brought about; he was the past and the memories, both of happiness and of despair, that accompanied it. He leaned down, resting his chin against your shoulder as his hands released you from his hold and travelled down to encircle your waist in a hug. 

All he had to do was pull you back a bit and all you had to do was push him forward a bit. The present was where the two of you found common ground, where your minds tapped into to focus on the _now_ rather than the _before_ or the _later_ — it was the time that mattered the most, and it was the time he wanted to share with no one other than you. 

“You know it.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write a story about focusing on the present rather than the past and the future for a while now, but I wasn't anticipating it to be this long 😂 I hope you liked it :)


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